Having set her mind back on a corrected course, she put out a coffee cup for Linc, poured milk for the children and placed a selection of cookies on a plate.
Linc and Robbie came through the door together.
“I got a real good fort built,” Robbie said. “I think I’ll put a fence around it.”
“Good fort needs a good fence.” Linc sounded as if it was the most important thing he could discuss.
“You seen any forts?” Robbie asked.
“Only in museums. I’m grateful we don’t need them to protect us anymore.” He glanced about. “Is there a place I can wash up?”
Sally indicated the sink in the back room that served as pantry and laundry room.
Robbie followed Linc and washed his hands without being told. If only the boy could be so cooperative all the time. She poured coffee into the cup she’d set out for Linc and waited for the pair to return.
Robbie scampered to his chair and downed his glass of milk in loud gulps. “Can I have more?”
“Whoa. Slow down,” Linc said. “You wouldn’t want to drown yourself, now would you?”
Robbie giggled and planted himself more squarely in his chair, apparently intending to wait patiently.
“And who is this pretty young gal?” Linc indicated Carol.
His words jarred Sally into action. “This is Carol Finley.” She told the girl who Linc was, saying he visited his grandmother across the alley, leaving out all the vicious rumors.
“Pleased to meet you.” Linc reached for Carol’s hand and bent over slightly as he shook it.
Carol flushed a dull red, pulled her hand to her lap and ducked her head.
Guess he had the same disconcerting effect on both young and grown girls. The thought comforted Sally, but she experienced a twinge of sympathy for Carol’s confusion.
Linc shifted his attention to the table, nodded toward the cup of steaming coffee. “For me?”
Sally jerked herself out of her thoughts. “Yes. And please, sit down and help yourself to cookies.”
He sat and tasted his coffee. “Yum. Hard to beat fresh coffee.”
Sally refilled Robbie’s glass and passed the plate.
Carol lifted her face as she took a cookie. Her eyes darted toward Linc and she ducked away again.
Smitten, Sally thought. And as embarrassed about her reaction, as I am about mine.
“Did you bake these?” Linc lifted a ginger cookie to indicate what he meant.
“Yes.” Sally prayed her cheeks wouldn’t darken in echo of Carol’s reaction. She was, after all, a grown, self-controlled woman. “My father’s favorite cookie.”
“They’re good.” He sighed. “Not at all like the hard tack and beans a cowboy gets used to eating.”
Robbie nearly squirmed right off his chair. “You a real cowboy?”
Linc held out his arm. “Feel.”
Robbie pressed his hand to Linc’s forearm.
“I feel real to you?”
Robbie giggled.
Carol watched the pair. “He didn’t mean real in that way. He meant do you live out on the hills, camping with cows and herding them?”
Sally almost dropped her cookie. It was the most she’d heard Carol speak at one time since she’d started caring for them a month ago. She tore her attention from Carol back to Linc, as curious over his answer as either of the children.
Linc leaned back, a faraway look in his eyes. “I spent many nights sleeping on the ground with a herd of cows bawling in my ear. Lots of fun but hard work, too. And like I said, often the food wasn’t that great.”
He might not appreciate the food, but there was no mistaking how much he liked his sort of life. A shudder crossed Sally’s shoulders. She could imagine nothing appealing about such an unsettled existence.
“You cook your own food?” Robbie asked, his eyes and mouth as round as the top of his glass.
“Depends on whether I was alone or with a crew. If I was alone, I didn’t have much choice. Either cook or starve to death. But when we had a roundup the ranch provided a cook wagon. That was great.” He sighed and patted his stomach. “Some of those old cooks worked magic with flour and water and fresh beef.”
Carol had slid forward on her chair, mesmerized by the way Linc talked. “Did you sing to the cows?” She lowered her gaze a brief moment. “I heard that cowboys sing to calm them. Our teacher taught us ‘The Old Chisholm Trail.’ She said the cowboys like to sing that song.”
“Come a ti-yi-yi-yippy-yippy-ah.” Linc half sang, half spoke the words.
Carol’s eyes glistened. “That’s it.”
Linc chuckled. “We had one old cowboy by the name of Skinner. He always brought along his fiddle and played it after supper, just as the moon cast a glow on the trees, making them look like pale white soldiers. I tell you, there’s nothing more mournful than a fiddle playing “Oh Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.” He shivered but his face belied his words. He looked as if it was the best part of life.
Sally didn’t take her eyes off his glowing face. Without looking, she knew both children were equally as mesmerized. She blinked and forced her attention to other things. Her responsibilities. “Children, finish up. Do your chores and then you can play until suppertime.”
They downed their cookies and milk and raced away—Robbie to take away the pail of coal ashes Sally had scraped out of the stove earlier in the day. He often made a big deal of the chore, when all he had to do was carry the pail to the ash heap at the far corner of the yard and bring the empty pail back. This time he didn’t utter one word of complaint. Carol’s chore was to sweep the front step and sidewalk. She grabbed the broom and hurried outside.
Linc drained his coffee and pushed back from the table. “I thank you.” He grabbed his hat off the back of the chair and headed for the door where he paused. “You coming out again?”
Why did her heart pick up pace at his innocent question? She half convinced herself he spoke out of politeness, not out of any real desire for her to join him. With the portion of her brain that remained sensible, she brought out the right words. “I can’t. I have to make supper and …” At a loss to think what else she needed to do, she let her words trail off.
“Of course.” He pushed his hat to his head and stepped outside. “Thanks again.” He strode away, his long legs quickly creating distance.
She stared after him as he returned to the crab apple trees and gathered the branches he’d removed. His arms full, he headed for the garbage barrel by the ash pile and broke the branches to stuff them into the barrel. What did she hear? She lifted the window sash and listened.
“Oh, do you remember sweet Betsy from Pike?”
He was singing.
She listened in fascination. He didn’t have a particularly fine singing voice. In fact, it was gravelly, as if he sang past a mouthful of marbles, and he missed a few of the notes. But what he lacked in talent, he more than made up for in enjoyment. The notes fairly danced through the air and frolicked into her heart, where they skipped and whirled until they were well embedded.
The front door